Memento Mori: a reminder of mortality…

Witnessing Life

Save for the photographs I make for Scooter in the Sticks and a few family snapshots I’ve been an idle photographer.  The darkroom is shuttered and I’ve sold almost all of my “serious” cameras — the Leica is gone along with the view camera.  And with them my desire to seriously pursue any more photography projects. Finally free of the torment of camera work and creative irritations I could relax and enjoy each day as it unfolded.  At least until I found myself picking the camera up each morning as I wandered the garden with the dogs.  Without intention or goal I pressure the shutter on whatever provided interest.  Or not.  I was engaging a photographic process that I knew, at least subconsciously, would stimulate desire.

A desire to see again.

Learning to See

I can’t remember when the camera became a means to see beyond what was revealed to my eyes.  There is more — sometimes wonderful images reflecting the soaring joy felt felt witnessing a magnificent vista, the grin on a granddaughter’s face, or the loving eyes of a faithful dog.  Make enough photographs and you may find something else, something not everyone is comfortable looking at — the march of time.

Writer, filmmaker, teacher and activist Susan Sontag eloquently described a part of the photographic phenomena.

“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”
― Susan Sontag

Wandering the garden with the camera I’m stricken by what is passing away.

Stride with Grace

My lovely bamboo grove — planted 20 years ago and growing into a dazzling array of culms and shimmering leaves.  Such a graceful plant (though wildly aggressive lest one wield a shovel continuously). And then, seemingly overnight, it passes its peak and begins to fade.  The camera sees it.  There is less life ahead. The Phyllostachys aureosulcata surrenders to time’s relentless melt.  Evidence is everywhere.  In the garden, along the road.

In the mirror.

Dear Friend Junior

There are dogs and then there is something more — canines of myth with mystical power to influence behavior.  Junior, our Belgian Sheepdog, has wandered with me for almost seven years now and submitted to frequent encounters with the camera.  Photography can make some knowledge almost too much to bear.  But it also reminds of what is happening constantly.

A dog’s stare — a quiet mesmerization whispering, “pickup that ball”.

A Photography Project

Fine hairs on a Staghorn Sumac branch as the dawn comes to the garden.  I work with the camera each morning.  Sometimes for only a moment, a nod toward compulsion that I can check off a commitment to work. Kim loves this tree and her enthusiasm has rubbed off on me.  I’m slow to change in almost everything, including trees.

After a few weeks of making exposures with the camera in the garden I can sense a simmering desire to do something more — a photography project that stares at the memento mori.  Friends have suggested my heart attack last spring has influenced an outlook toward mortality but I know I’ve been photographing that feeling for years, long before the heart attack.

I’m uncertain where the photography will lead but I’ll share evidence here as it surfaces and provides a glimpse of time’s relentless melt…